THIS AND THAT

Just a reminder: My novel, General Trinh is Delivering Papers, is posted on the Best Of over on the left. For those of you in the Google blog, you must go to http://www.letterfrombangkok.net/. I cannot control the archives in the Google blog.

I’m working on my next novel which is a mystery.

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Am I the first to say this?

With enemies like Howard Dean you don’t need friends.

I love that. I hope I’m the first to say it but I may have heard it somewhere else, not necessarily linked to Howard Dean.

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Here in Bangkok I’m out of touch with a lot of things. I seem to be way out of touch with Hollywood. For instance: Ben Stiller may an A-list actor, but I wouldn’t change places with him. He seems creepy to me.

And Drew Barrymore is a Hollywood beauty? She couldn’t get a job in a bar here in Bangkok.

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MAN AGAINST FISH

They put a new sign on a metal post near my house. I pass it every morning walking my kids to school. It sticks out four inches from the post at the height of my hat brim. It took me five days for me to adjust to the sign so my hat brim didn’t hit it.

We put some new fish into our aquarium. When we first approached the glass the fish swam far away from us. Then they learned that the approach of humans might mean that they get fed so they swam toward us. It took the fish three days to learn that.

The fish learned two days faster than the man.